The JLA: Twisted Origins
by avitable
Summary: JLA retold, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, GL, MM, Aquaman - all of them . . . but different.
1. Origins 1

Author's note: This will start off with several origin stories, and then develop into a story eventually. Just bear with me.  
  
"Run, Bruce," his father urged, gripping him tightly by his wrist. Bruce Wayne had very little time to think as he ran with his parents down the alley, away from the man with the gun. It seemed like years ago he had skipped out of the movie theater, hand-in-hand with his parents, reliving the magic cinematic moments.  
  
His father, a strong, stern man, seemed invincible. But tonight, Bruce noticed the look in his eyes, the tremble in his hands and the sweat on his forehead. Thomas Wayne, a man among men, was scared. This thought echoed through Bruce's head as he began to cry silently. Tears rolled down his face as he followed his family into an abandoned building.  
  
"I think we're safe here," Thomas said in a hush tone, huddling behind some boxes on the warehouse floor. The warehouse, dimly lit, seemed to stretch on for miles. Ten or fifteen huge metal canisters towered over the family, and a catwalk ran overhead, ending in a fire escape. "We'll give him a few minutes, and if he doesn't show up, we'll run up that catwalk, and over to the escape. From there, we can probably get far enough away that we can call the police. Hopefully, he's given up and will leave us alone."  
  
"I would have, if I weren't such a persistent bastard." The gunman, dressed in a dark red suit and yellow-shaded glasses, appeared around the corner, pointing his pistol in their direction. "Now that you made me work for it, though, yer definitely going to pay for it!"  
  
As he walked towards the family, Thomas leapt up. "Run for it!" he shouted as he lunged for the gunman. Bruce and his mother headed for the catwalks as Thomas wrestled for the gun. Once on the stairs, Bruce stumbled and fell, so his mother picked him up and carried him as she climbed, resolutely, towards their goal. Bruce had a perfect view, then, as his head rested on his mother's shoulder looking behind her, as the gunman recovered the gun and fired a bullet into Thomas's head. Indifferent to the blood and brains leaking onto the floor, the gunman began rifling through Thomas's pockets, pulling out his wallet and pulling off his watch and jewelry.  
  
Closing his eyes, Bruce felt his mother jerk to a stop. He climbed down and turned around, looking at a huge gaping hole in the catwalk. It had rusted through, years ago from the look of it, and there was no way across. A nearby window allowed enough moonlight in to show the ground looking very foreboding 40 feet below.  
  
Frantically, Martha Wayne whirled around and headed towards the stairs they just climbed, Bruce by her side, only to find their oppressor blocking their path. "Take it easy and nobody else gets hurt," the man rasped. "I wouldn't want you to get hurt, too, and then have your son grow up an orphan who is forever tortured by the images of his parents dying and he couldn't prevent it, would you?"  
  
In response, Martha headed to the edge of the walkway. Stretching as far as she could, her fingers grazed the window latch, but she was too short and the window was too far away. As she willed her fingers to be just a little bit longer, imagining the window opening and granting freedom, a shout from behind startled her.  
  
"Hey! What the hell are you doing? I told you to take it easy!" the attacker yelled. "Are you deaf or stupid?" His eyes widened slightly as the woman, frightened by his outburst, lost her footing and tumbled over the railing. Spastically, she flailed her arms and caught onto the window sill. As she slowly pulled herself up, she turned and looked at Bruce.  
  
"Bruce, come and jump! I'll catch you honey, I promise!" Martha braced herself against the window, and with her left hand, opened the latch. As she slid the window open so that she could use the leverage to catch Bruce, the gunman shrugged at her.  
  
"Told you, you stupid bitch." He raised the gun and fired a single shot into her torso. The bullet passed through her and shattered the window behind her as her body fell to the hard, unrelenting ground below. With a vicious shriek, the boy charged the gunman, punching and kicking. For a child, his blows were strong, and one in particular caught the gunman unaware. "For the love of . . ." he gasped, kneeling down and holding his groin. Bruce followed up with a kick to the attacker's temple, knocking him prone.  
  
Before he could inflict any further pain, a fluttering sound filled the room as the light from the moon was occluded. Bruce looked out the window right as hundreds of bats flew in, landing in his hair and cutting him with their claws. Moving backwards, flailing his arms wildly, he flipped over the railing and landed 10 feet below, cut and bleeding, but otherwise unharmed. Bruce looked around and realized that he had landed on the tops of one of the giant canisters. Standing on the glass lid, he looked down and watched the chemicals in the canister bubble and froth. He could almost read the full name etched on the lid: "Crawford Chemical . . ."  
  
As he searched for a way down, he heard a crack, and before he could react, the lid shattered. Wordlessly, Bruce plunged into the chemicals below and disappeared without a trace.  
  
"Wow," said the gunman, Eel O'Brian, as he peered over the edge of the catwalk. "That was really bats, man." 


	2. Origins 2

Dr. Erdel drifted around his laboratory quietly, humming some ancient mariner's ballad. Before him lay glistening machinery, beeping and flashing to an unknown rhythm.  
  
His goal: unknown. After hitting his head on the corner of a table, Erdel envisioned the invention that he named the flux capacitor. He didn't know what it would do and wasn't even sure how he built it, but he knew that, given a large enough power source, it would do something supremely spectacular.  
  
No power had been enough, though. He had tried batteries of all sizes and electricity and turbines and water power, but nothing would ever create a flicker from his flux capacitor. Then the idea struck him – a thermonuclear explosion. If he could channel the destructive force and resultant kinetic energy, maybe it would work. So, in a scientist's normal day work, Erdel whipped up a quantum singularity and created a thermonuclear device to operate from within the safety of the singularity. A conduit streamed from the middle of the singularity – a black swirling mass about five feet in diameter – to the flux capacitor. Theoretically, it would have enough power to make his invention do whatever it was supposed to do.  
  
"Well, I'll never know unless I try." Without hesitation, Erdel pressed the red button on his console, back in the safety of his control room. Through the singularity, he heard a large THWOOMP, and the conduit glowed like a nest of electric eels. His invention began humming and vibrating until it was barely visible. Erdel's jaw dropped as a portal opened, showing a red world with shimmering skies and a glaring sun. There was a bright flash of light and then complete darkness.  
  
Erdel's eyes adjusted quickly. The flux capacitor was melted beyond repair. Clucking his tongue disappointedly, Erdel circled around to enter the testing area of his laboratory. As he rounded the corner, he was greeted by a surprise. A large green humanoid creature was lying on the floor. Quietly, he approached the creature, only to be frightened when it turned, looked at him and growled.  
  
For J'onn J'onzz, a simple walk after evening-meal had changed his life forever. During his stroll, as he watched the moons and sun dance on the horizon, a strange rumbling sound interrupted his peace. With a flash of light, his home disappeared and this strange environment floated before him.  
  
Immediately, he felt the difference and knew that he wasn't in K'aanzasz, his home grouping, anymore. He felt sluggish, as if he were moving through a bowl of the syrup his lifemate spread on herself. As he inhaled, he realized that the atmosphere was much different than his home, and in response, he grew a pair of lungs to filter his breath so he could survive. "The advantages to having complete control over one's molecular structure is that there are few surprises", J'onn thought to himself.  
  
Finally, as he recuperated on the floor, he expanded his mind, using his innate psychic ability to touch every living creature he could find. Before long, J'onn knew what planet he was on and even had a rudimentary understanding of the basic language. Excited now, especially to be communicating with another race from another planet, he turned and faced the creature he now knew was called Er-dell.  
  
When J'onn turned and tried to greet Er-dell, a low growl escaped his mouth instead. Seeing the frightened look on the creature's face, J'onn quickly realized the problem and molecularly adjusted his voicebox to speak the creature's language. "Erdel?" he said. "J'onn!" He pointed to his own chest.  
  
Erdel shrieked and began to back away very quickly. Before J'onn could move, he tripped over the conduit and fell directly into the middle of the singularity. The resulting scream echoed several times in the small laboratory.  
  
Concerned about inciting suicide in all of the creatures he met, J'onn reformed his physical figure to match the one pleasant image he drew from Erdel's mind. His green angular form quickly took the shape of a young blonde man. No sooner had he finished re-forming his structure did he hear six creatures approaching from outside. Looking through the walls, he noticed that three of the creatures were riding three other creatures. Wondering what those other creatures were called, J'onn searched the riders' minds as he approached the entrance to the habitat he was in. "See- horse?" he muttered, wondering about the names these creatures call each other.  
  
"Hello, sir," said the head rider. He was an older man with white hair jutting from his head and from a long, flowing moustache. "The oracle foretold your arrival, and we have been waiting a long time for this moment. My name is Vulko, and welcome to Atlantis." 


	3. Origins 3

"Jor-el, are we doing the right thing?" Lara asked nervously, clutching her hands to her chest. "Is this the only way to save our child?"  
  
"Lara, dear, I have made every calculation and plotted every possibility, and our planet is on its death-bed. This is our child's only hope for survival. I have carefully planned the course, and the ship will land somewhere that will be an island of paradise among a universe of lesser bodies." Jor-el stood firm at the control panel, although a subtle wrinkle in his brow belied his concern. "This is our progeny's destiny, L. . ." A rumble through the ground rudely interrupted.  
  
"Quickly!" Jor-el thrust his child into the ship and sealed it. Shielding his wife from the blast, he pressed the launch button. With a shudder and a blast of smoke, the ship was ejected quickly into the atmosphere, leaving a green trail in its wake. As the vessel headed for its destination, giant explosions and earthquakes were visible through the planet beneath it.  
  
The silver ship arced over its destination. Two years had passed since it had taken off from its home planet, and the child inside had grown into a cognizant being. From the viewport in the ship, wide open eyes watched as the ground rushed up to the ship, leaving a furrow in the lush green paradise where it landed.  
  
Within seconds, a crowd gathered around the shimmering object. "Ooooooo. Aaaaaaa." the crowd murmured with excitement. Things were generally pretty boring here, so any diversions from a fight between the local warriors to a ship landing were all reasons to get away from the normal life.  
  
From the air, a woman circled the ship before alighting directly beside it. She extended her hand and, suddenly (as the crowd gasped), the ship opened, melting away to show a small creature inside. "We've never had one of these here before," the woman said under her breath, picking up the male humanoid child, "I wonder what effect this will have on our lives, but it's not like we can send him back to anywhere."  
  
The crowd recoiled a little as the woman put the boy down and his feet touched the ground. However, as he toddled around, giggling and speaking to himself in that language that only babies know, they relented and crowded in to touch him and play with him.  
  
After a few minutes, the woman plucked the child from the ground and flew off, landing at a stately palace nearby. She entered and approached the figure standing within. "I've brought the child, as you requested. His ship is indeed Kryptonian as we suspected, although the markings inside indicate that it was headed for Earth."  
  
"Excellent. This young man will become our champion for years to come. As he grows, we will teach him our tenets and philosophies, and he will help us shape the universe as we've always hoped. This child, named Kal-El from the planet Krypton, will make an excellent addition to our Green Lantern Corps." The figure, Ganthet, cradled the child gently as the suns set over Oa's horizon. 


End file.
